rod willmot | the ribs of dragonfly

ROD WILLMOT

One day I thought of writing a haiku for each rib of my canoe. The idea led further than intended, for in time there were characters before me, with a story, told in the 9-month season in which (where I live) a canoe can be put into water. The haiku had doubled, accounting for both the ribs and the spaces between them. The result may be considered a novella with haiku; it is a form of what the Japanese call: a haibun.

musty shed
winter light
on the overturned canoe

chipped paint on the boathouse
faster
the slapping of waves

mist on the water
a dog barks
once

the canoe sleeps on
through the singing of pebbles
we walk upstream

[from: THE RIBS OF DRAGONFLY, Black Moss Press, Canada, 1984]